


Jester's Silence

by holdouttrout



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-01
Updated: 2008-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/pseuds/holdouttrout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years, and Vala is bored and looking for a new victim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jester's Silence

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to **abyssinia4077** for doing beta duty on this fic. Any and all mistakes are mine alone, but she helped make this much, much better. Written for the **sg1friendathon**.

For the first five years, the ship hummed with a nervous intensity that set Teal'c on edge, his tension making his teeth clench when he attempted to meditate. Arguments were frequent, fierce, and devastating, especially between Cameron and Sam, since Cam blamed Sam for their entrapment, and Sam blamed herself.

Teal'c sparred with Cam as often as possible and comforted Sam as best he could, offering her his presence, a solid shoulder, a silent ear. She took them reluctantly, but took them, letting her guard down with him in a way she couldn't with any of the others. He let her talk through theories as long as it seemed helpful, or until she forgot he was there and lapsed into silent research.

Still, after five years, things settled down into a routine. Teal'c beat Cameron up. Sam beat herself up. Landry cultivated home. Daniel began to delve further into the Asgard database, and Vala—

"I'm bored."

Teal'c was using empty crew quarters for his meditations--it had an great view of the stars, uninterrupted by the energy pulse from the Ori ship, and it made it less likely Cam would seek him out and interrupt him for a few hours.

However, he never planned on needing to avoid Vala, hadn't thought she would seek him out. A mistake.

He opened his eyes to find her inches from his face, staring at him. He was sitting on a table with his legs folded underneath him, which meant Vala was just barely bending over to meet his eye level. She looked like a curious, petulant child, her hair in the pigtails she favored. It seemed that perhaps Vala could get tired of tormenting Daniel after all.

"There are many possible activities on the ship."

Vala backed away a little, crossing her arms and straightening. "I've done them all."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "I do not believe such a thing is possible."

Vala rolled her eyes and waved a hand. "Fine. But I'm still bored."

Teal'c considered her for a moment. "You would be welcome to join me in meditation."

Vala laughed. "Thanks but no thanks. I want to do something _fun_." She got a look on her face that Teal'c recognized as trouble. "Like another roller-skating race."

Teal'c remembered the last one. "I do not think that would be advisable."

"No, but it might be fun," Vala said. "Don't you ever get tired of sitting around, looking at the same nothing, day after day?"

"Indeed I do, Vala Mal Doran, but I also enjoy reflecting on my thoughts and actions through meditation." He didn't add _in peace and quiet,_ but Vala heard it nonetheless.

She sighed. "Well, _I'm_ going to find something interesting to do."

Teal'c closed his eyes again and ignored Vala, who sighed a few more times and then left.

A box of hair dye and an enraged Daniel later, the ship was certainly anything but dull. Everyone except for Daniel was amused, although Sam offered to help Daniel look for something in the database to get rid of the bright blue color.

"I don't know," Cam said, his straight face faltering just a bit, "I think it looks kinda nice."

"Blue is a very good color for you, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel glared at Teal'c as Landry tried to conceal a huff of laughter with a cough. Vala grinned at Teal'c. "I knew you'd appreciate it, Muscles."

"Hey," Cam said, "at least it's different."

"Oh, so it's just entertainment. Thanks. I'm so glad I could amuse you." Daniel looked more than a little sulky, although the effect was ruined by the hair.

Sam was trying not to laugh, but she caught Vala's eye and lost it, doubled over the back of a chair. Daniel threw up his hands and stalked off.

On a ship with only six people, it wasn't even a question that Vala had somehow been responsible for Daniel's new look. And although it would have been completely reasonable to assume that Daniel was responsible for _Vala's_ shriek the next morning, as well as her lime green hair, he had an iron-clad alibi for the entire day. As far as anyone knew, no one had been near Vala's quarters except Vala herself, and not even the ship's sensor logs could shed light on the situation.

They made quite the picture that morning at breakfast--Daniel's bright blue head across from Vala's green one. Daniel smirked the whole time, and Vala refused to acknowledge his presence, leaving as soon as she finished her meal instead of lounging around like she normally did.

Everyone--especially Daniel--went through the day with little smiles on their faces. It was a silly thing, but they had all needed something to take their minds off the sameness of their day to day existence on the ship. Teal'c heard Cam and Sam both laughing during the day, and smiled as he prepared for his meditations, lighting the candles and sitting on top of the table so he could gaze upon the stars. He let his awareness fade--

The door opened. "Ah! I thought I'd find you here."

Vala.

Teal'c exhaled and turned, surprised to find Vala smiling, her bright hair tucked back behind her ears.

"Don't tell Daniel," she said as she came further into the room, letting the door close behind her, "but I'm really quite impressed."

"I believe Colonel Carter must have assisted him," Teal'c offered, raising an eyebrow as Vala climbed onto the table as plopped down, crossing her legs underneath her.

Vala hummed her agreement and closed her eyes.

Teal'c watched her, still unsure why she was there, but Vala just breathed in and out quietly and calmly, and Teal'c decided not to tempt her to say anything else. He too shut his eyes and let his mind drift. He let himself feel the humming of the ship that these days usually blended into silence, let himself notice all the creaking and rustling and Vala's breathing next to him and then let it all go again, let it fade into the background.

He wasn't sure how long he drifted, but he came back as soon as Vala started to move. She opened the door and paused. "There's only one thing," she said. "Sam acted really surprised when she saw it." She left; the breath of air from the door closing caused the flames to sputter behind jagged peaks of wax. Teal'c gave the door a hint of a smile and then blew out the candles and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

It was several weeks before the next round, but this time Daniel wasn't the victim.

Cam did a double-take. "Nice hair, T."

Sam barely looked up from her research, blinked, looked back down, already forming an absent "Good morning" when her head whipped back up. She stared at Teal'c's hair, which was a bright, vivid pink.

Landry just shook his head. Vala attempted a whistle--it was her new thing, and she was inconsistently terrible at it--but a grin kept interfering, so it sort of died away.

Teal'c nodded gravely and poured his current breakfast of choice: frosted wheat thins.

Daniel walked in a few minutes later, looked at Teal'c's hair, and said, "You know, the hair thing is getting a little old."

Teal'c said, "Do you not find this color to be an attractive choice for me, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel just shook his head and got his breakfast.

Teal'c was not surprised when Vala came to his meditation room that afternoon. This time, she was a bundle of nervous energy that Teal'c had trouble ignoring. Finally, he said, "Either be still or remove yourself, Vala Mal Doran. You are making it difficult to concentrate."

Vala sighed loudly and got up from the table. "No appreciation for subtlety," she sniffed.

"You are mistaken. I find the color suits me quite well."

Vala gave his cheek a quick peck and smiled, flying out of the room.

A few days later, Vala was sixteen minutes later to breakfast than usual.

"I need movers," she announced.

"What's wrong with where you are now?" Cam asked.

"I liked my old room just fine," she said. "Last night, all of my possessions mysteriously found their way exactly one floor below it."

"Where were you?" Daniel said.

"Asleep."

"Wait...someone moved all the stuff in your room, to a different room, while you were asleep?" Sam said. "That's..."

Cam grinned, "Really, really sneaky."

Sam looked thoughtful. "Maybe we can just beam it all back?"

"Better than moving all that crap by hand," Cam muttered.

They all moved to the control room. Sam sat in front of the computer and typed in a few commands. She gave a little start. "Someone already programmed this--" he head whipped up, but not at Teal'c, and her fingers were already moving over the keys.

"What?" Vala said, crowding around her. "Does it say who?"

Sam typed another sequence and shook her head just a little too quickly. "No, sorry."

Vala managed to look suspicious and pout at the same time. Sam sneaked one very small glance Teal'c's way but said nothing, still typing in commands. "There," she said. "All your stuff is back on the right deck."

"Thank you," Vala said.

Sam typed in a few more commands.

"What are you doing?" Vala asked curiously, looking over Sam's shoulder.

"Putting a lock in so no one else can do this again," she said.

Cam looked a bit crestfallen, and Sam smiled at him. "You'll have to come up with something else," she said. "Or break my password. And it's not 'fishing.'"

Cam groaned. "Might as well try to steal the Statue of Liberty."

"I believe that would be difficult from our present location," Teal'c said.

Sam laughed. Cam rolled his eyes. They all missed Vala's evil grin.

This time, Vala joined him for meditation the day before a huge Jello replica of Lady Liberty took up residence in the commissary. She was multi-colored, with a red torch, green arms, orange crown, and dressed in robes Teal'c recognized even though they were dyed green.

Cam whistled. "Impressive."

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

They ate it by digging spoons into her haphazardly so that she slumped and finally toppled into a gooey mess of sugar and gelatin.

Teal'c took his time coming up with a fitting answer to Vala's challenge. He meditated on it many days, Vala joining him on his table, legs crossed, mouth quirked into a permanent grin, despite the fact he no longer responded to her hints or jabs. Instead, they sat side by side on the table, eyes closed to the brilliance of the stars outside, breathing deep and even.

And then he had it. He got up and left her sitting in the middle of the candles and starlight without so much as a word.

He made her wait almost a year for it, until she'd not only stopped pestering him about it during their meditation sessions, but also until he sensed she'd stopped thinking about it. He used the time to work out the logistics, covering every angle, every foreseeable problem.

And then he made his move.

Teal'c came to breakfast right on time. He finished his customary bowl of cereal and sat back in his chair. He gave his watch a quick glance and then folded his arms, waiting.

Daniel finally looked up. "Where's Vala?"

The ships comms crackled. "Very funny. Now anyone want to come get me down?" It was Vala's voice. She sounded out of breath, strained.

"Vala?" Sam said. "What's going on?"

"Oh," Vala said, "not much. I'm just a little...out of touch at the moment."

Teal'c's expression did not change. Cam and Sam gave each other concerned looks and started for the door, Landry and Daniel not far behind. Teal'c followed more slowly. Still, it didn't take long for them to reach Vala's quarters. Sam opened the door and started to go in, but Teal'c reached out and stopped her.

"Whoa," Cam said.

Landry gaped. "Holy moly."

Daniel just shook his head, speechless.

Sam gave Teal'c a look that was half disbelief and half admiration. "How did you--"

"Hello? A little help here?" Vala called from inside the room. She was clutching at the bed, looking down at them from the ceiling. Her bedside table was next to her, hanging from the ceiling--or at least, that's what it looked like. There wasn't a thing out of place; everything was exactly the way it always had been, so far as they could tell. Vala's room was simply and completely upside down.

Cam stuck his head in carefully, and whistled. "How did you reach the intercom?" He eyed the comm, which was about five feet off the floor of the ship, and just a little too far for Vala to reach.

"I managed," she said. "Now can you see about getting me down?"

Between Daniel and Cam, they managed to pull her down off the ceiling by having her stand up and reach down toward them, pulling her into the corridor. They fell flat on their backs as she came tumbling through.

"Someone switched the artificial gravity for just this room," Sam said.

"I think we noticed that," Cam grunted heaving Vala off him and getting to his feet.

"Yeah, but the timing--" Sam gestured behind her. "It's very impressive."

Cam helped Daniel and then Vala back up. "How so?"

"Well," Sam said, "Whoever did this also had to use the beaming technology at the same time, otherwise it would have been very dangerous, not to mention destructive. Which means that someone figured out either my password or how to circumvent it."

"Unless it was you and you're trying to shift blame," Daniel said.

"Hey!" Sam said.

"Nah," Cam said. "She'd be smiling more if she'd done it."

Daniel conceded the point.

"You can put it back, can't you?" Vala asked.

"Sure," Sam said. "I think, anyway. It might take a few days." She looked a little too doubtful, a little too innocent. Still, Vala looked alarmed.

"Days?"

Landry chuckled.

Sam started to walk toward the computer core, Vala trailing behind her. "You're kidding about the days part, right?"

Cam and Daniel were still looking inside her room.

"You didn't--" Daniel gestured.

Cam shook his head. "You didn't?"

They both turned to Teal'c at the same moment. Teal'c regarded them impassively.

"Nah..." Cam said.

"Couldn't be," Daniel agreed.

Teal'c just raised an eyebrow and walked away.

It only took Sam a few hours to figure it out, motivated, no doubt, by a desire to have Vala stop pestering her as to when it would be done. So it was only the next day when Vala came to the meditation room and sat down.

"Sam told me it was you," she said.

"I do not believe that Colonel Carter would say such a thing, even if she suspected it," Teal'c replied.

Vala sighed. "You know, if we're here long enough, I'll figure out something bigger."

Teal'c gave a slight shrug. He knew that someday Vala would try something else, but it might be a while before she did--he had set a impressive precedent.

"Oh, fine, then," Vala said when she realized Teal'c wasn't going to say anything. "Obviously, I'm going to need to work on my inspiration." She crossed her legs and closed her eyes, preparing for meditation. Teal'c followed her example, content to leave things as they were for now. They stayed side by side for a long time, while the ship hummed around them.


End file.
